


“I Want To Believe...”

by A_Damned_Scientist



Category: Farscape, The X-Files
Genre: Challenge Response, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 07:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13676802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Damned_Scientist/pseuds/A_Damned_Scientist
Summary: Aeryn and Scully bond during a drunken night out during Aeryn's goodwill tour of Earth.





	“I Want To Believe...”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my own Starburst Challenge 103 (something nice happens to an agent, they get to drink egg nog and use a couple of lines from the X Files), because I couldn’t just post another PWP.
> 
> Setting, about 2003 in both shows. I have taken a couple of liberties with timelines, which hopefully nobody will know or care about after a decade and a half.
> 
> Warnings: Rated PG for alcohol consumption. At NO POINT do Dana and Aeryn end up drunkenly sharing a bed. Just to clear that up, in case you are wondering, what with what seems to be my reputation for fanfic smut.
> 
> Thanks: To Vinegardog for beta-ing this, despite not being an X-Files fan.
> 
> Disclaimer: You know these shows aren’t mine, right?

**“I Want To Believe...”**

 

“.... in a thing called love,” Agent Dana Scully laughed to herself before finally collapsing onto her hotel bed. It had been a wild ride, this last week. Exhausting, but eye opening, and ultimately a lot of fun.

And it had finally confirmed that the truth, such as it was, was most certainly out there. Totally Out There.

She just hoped her hangover wasn’t going to be too awful come the morning...

@#@

It had all started two weeks earlier. She and her partner, Fox Mulder, had been pulled from their normal FBI duties, if you could call what they did normal by FBI standards. They had then been given their current assignment, helping to guard the aliens that IASA Commander John Crichton had dragged home after nearly four years missing presumed dead in deepest space.

The sort of thing that was just up Mulder’s alley.

It had been put to her and Mulder that the Secret Service had found themselves short staffed and so needed help from other agencies to cover all that they were unexpectedly being asked to cover. But it surely wasn’t a coincidence that she and Mulder had been chosen from the massed ranks of the FBI to make up the numbers?

Perhaps someone had imagined it would shut Mulder up once and for all if he was made to spend all his waking hours with real, bona fide aliens?

It hadn’t shut him up. He’d gotten worse. Especially in the four days since they had jetted off to Europe on a goodwill tour with the solemn and serious and human-looking Officer Aeryn Sun and her friend, the mercurial, grey-skinned Nebari called Chiana,. Up to today it had been Chiana who had been the cause of most of their troubles and all of their fun. But today they had been forced to pair up as their charges had different meetings scheduled. Scully had accompanied Officer Sun to a boring meeting with some British Government military intelligence types, whereas Fox had gone with Chiana to shake hands in front of some cameras somewhere.

“Is he bending her ear AGAIN?” Scully asked Officer Sun as she and the Sebacean woman arrived back at the lobby of their swish London hotel, having caught sight of Mulder and Chiana wedged into a dark and secluded corner booth.

“I think he is just talking to her?” Aeryn replied with a bemused frown. Mulder and Chiana’s demeanours made Scully think they looked like the guy who’d finally cornered the prom queen... and the rather bored and cornered prom queen.

“Little grey aliens. It’s his thing,” Scully explained with a shrug and, she hoped, not a hint of jealousy. Aeryn arched an eyebrow and seemed to give the merest hint of half a smirk to accompany it. Over the last few days Scully had got to understand that that practically constituted a long rambling monologue from the taciturn raven haired woman. “I expect they’ll be busy there for hours.”

“Or until Chiana manages to distract him and escape,” Aeryn snorted. Scully inclined her head in a half nod, conceding the possibility.

“We’ve nothing on this evening, do you fancy a quiet night?” Scully asked, half hoping and fully expecting Officer Sun to agree to the proposal at once.

“We’re free? Fine. I want to see a band. I heard their song on the radio in the car and I like it!” Aeryn gabbled, suddenly more animated and excited, in just one sentence, than she had been in total since arriving in Europe. “Look! Someone was handing out these flyers,” Aeryn pulled a small piece of paper out from the dark depths of her long, black leather coat. “They are playing in this city tonight!”

“We can’t!” Scully insisted, taking the flyer from Aeryn.

“Pleeeease...” Aeryn wheedled. He bottom lip quivered. Was that a single tear forming in the corner of her eye? Dana had never seen the totally controlled Officer Sun quite like this before.

“People will recognise you!” Scully tried to explain.

“Look at the pictures,” Aeryn countered, snatching the flyer and holding it up for Scully to see. Tonight At The Marquee: The Darkness. It pronounced, across a picture of unkempt biker types in a mosh pit. “Everyone is wearing black leather, I’ll fit right in. You on the other hand...  I think we’d need to get you some Erp-clothes,” Aeryn winked at her. Dana hadn’t known Aeryn winked, far less cracked jokes.

‘~’

Against her better judgement, an hour and a half later Scully found herself dressed in the most casual clothes in her suitcase, a dark, sober trouser suit, as she followed Aeryn into the depths of a seedy, dark, smelly and crowded venue. To Dana’s surprise, Aeryn seemed far happier and more at home than she felt herself. Aeryn certainly looked the part, with her black leather pants and jacket, her long, black boots and her even longer black hair.

The support act was currently playing. The distorted noise, mercifully muffled, reached as far as the lobby. They were loud and frankly, to Scully’s ears, rather terrible. So she was rather pleased when Aeryn didn’t immediately seem to head for the auditorium.

“Be careful!” Scully hissed, catching up with her charge and tugging on her elbow so she could impart a warning. “You might be recognised!”

“Nobody knows we’re here,” Aeryn snorted out her amused reply. “Besides, I’ve got you to protect me.” She added with a wink before snagging Scully’s hand and pulling her towards the bar.

 “C’mon, let’s get an egg nog!” Officer Sun insisted, grinning back at her.

“Have you ever had...?” Scully shouted. It was an acquired taste, after all. What if the Sebacean had some terrible reaction to the noxious drink?

“No!” Aeryn shrugged. “But it’s nearly Chrissymus. It’s traditional, Crichton says,” Aeryn grinned, dragging Dana towards the bar. A couple of minutes later they were ensconced in a booth with a selection of alcoholic drinks in front of them – as many as they had been able to carry between them.

”This is disgusting!” Aeryn pulled a face and stuck out her tongue as she tasted the egg nog. “A load of old Bols!”

“Well, if you don’t want yours...” Dana grinned and stretched out a hand to snag the unwanted glass of yellow alcohol. “I quite like it.” She explained as she knocked it back before moving on to her own.

“Be my guest!” Aeryn remarked before lifting and then downing one of the less controversial alcoholic drinks. “Tastes like Raslak,” she grinned, approving. “Raslak is a drink from where I come from. John calls it aviation fuel.”

“So, you and Crichton?” Dana asked, now sufficiently lubricated by egg nog to broach the subject, seeing as Aeryn had already met her half way.

“There is no me and Crichton,” Aeryn replied, unable to hide her sadness. “There used to be, but....”

“What went wrong?”

Aeryn frowned and pondered for a few moments, her mouth working silently. She took another drink.

“What does ‘get your story straight’ mean?”

“Umm...” Scully took a drink. Gee, what had she stumbled into here? Aeryn looked at her with big, pleading eyes. The poor, alien girl clearly had no clue and was genuinely asking for advice from....  from a human. Rotten luck for her that she’d chosen to ask her, Dana Scully, what with her incomprehensible love life, the FBI agent reflected ruefully.

“I guess it means tell him the truth?” Dana ventured.

“Yes, well, you see I thought that,” Aeryn gabbled between draining another glass of strong liquor. Gee could she put it away or what!? “But I have never been anything other than completely truthful with him! So I wondered if it meant something else.”

“Have you kept anything from him, then?” Dana tried again, doing her best not to slur any words.

“No, not since before he said that,” Aeryn downed another drink and stared sorrowfully at the empty glass. Dana felt compelled to join her, out of solidarity, having another egg nog. How many of the things had they bought? “I mean, except the details of the assassination unit I was part of...” Scully wasn’t sure whether to interject in shock and horror at that little revelation. She’d thought Aeryn was just a military pilot. That might explain her fixation with weapons? She decided to let Aeryn rabbit on. Not that there seemed to be any stopping her.... “but you’d think he’d respect that there are things, work things, that cannot be discussed?”

“What you have to understand, Aeryn...”  Dana picked her words as carefully as she could under the circumstances, wondering how much Aeryn the Assassin actually needed an FBI doctor as a bodyguard. “Is that men are stupid. Men... Stupid.”

“Funny, you sound just like Chiana. She says the same.”

“She’s right, then isn’t she?” Dana grinned happily. “The truth is out there!”

“Doesn’t your friend, Foxxxy Mulder.... say that?” At last, was that Aeryn slurring a word or showing a sign of being even a bit drunk? Scully felt oddly elated at the idea.

“Mmm hmm,” Dana blushed grinned and averted her eyes towards the table top.

“Ahhhh!” Aeryn’s face suddenly lit up with a radiant smile, as though she’d just had some sort of revelation. “So are you and him..?” She probed. Dana flushed and tried not to meet Aeryn’s eye. “You are aren’t you!?” For all the Sebacean’s incomprehension of her own love life, she seemed to have gotten a handle on Dana’s frighteningly quickly!

“No, no we’re not. We just can’t seem to get on the same page!” Dana spluttered. “It’s almost like someone else is writing the story of my life and keeps throwing up stupid obstacles!”

“Pfft, tell me about it!” Aeryn rolled her eyes and offered Dana the bottle of Riesling they had bought when at the bar. Apparently the name sounded like some drink that Aeryn liked.              

“Have you got any advice?” Dana asked hopefully.

“Yes,” Aeryn replied. Dana perked up, anticipating the forthcoming words of wisdom. “Don’t ask for advice about human males from me.” Aeryn finished with a slightly sad looking far-away look in her eye.

“Ah. Good point.” Dana conceded with a wry smile of her own.

“Hey, I think that’s them!” Aeryn suddenly announced with considerable animation and excitement. She snatched Dana’s hand and dragged the mildly protesting and ever so slightly drunk agent towards the mosh-pit.

Dana had never been anywhere quite like it. Neither, she suspected, had Aeryn. Or seen anyone quite like the band, with their cheeky grins, bad teeth and split to below the navel sequined jumpsuits. But it was incredible how rather too much egg nog and half a bottle of cheap wine could help one feel relaxed.

Not that Dana was enjoying herself half as much as Aeryn: All trace of the self contained and self controlled, po-faced and reserved woman she had come to know over the course of her assignment seemed to vanish as the outrageously cheesy and seedy band launched into their too-loud set.

Aeryn waved her hair around like a lunatic, and laughed. She even sang along as the band struck up ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’, grabbing Dana’s hands and forcing her into some sort of stupid dance with her while the rubber tentacles of the band’s alien prop started waving around on the stage.

Fortunately nobody seemed to recognise them. Dana wondered if aliens always went unnoticed and unremarked at these sort of concerts.

And afterwards, of course, Aeryn insisted they returned to the bar for more egg nog and ‘razlak’.

And after _that_ everything became a bit of a blur.

Which, was how, the next morning, the very straight-laced Agent Dana Scully ended up with a ringing in her ears and the sort of sore head and dry yet sticky mouth that spoke of one or three too many egg nogs consumed the night before.

It had been fun though, even though somewhere she suspected a black cabbie was regaling someone with “You wouldn’t believe who I had in the back of my cab last night...”

“I believe in a thing called Aspirin,” Scully groaned as she slowly swung herself out of bed, wishing she didn’t have to go on duty and wondering if Aeryn was similarly hung over.

Probably not. She could almost picture Aeryn spending her time hitting the booze in whatever passed for a mess in the Peacekeeper ranks. Next time, if there was a next time, Dana resolved to stick to apple juice.

 

The end

 


End file.
